I'm a Junior in high school in an MCJROTC, and by the end of this year I should be in the delayed entry program for the USMC, or the beginning of the next depending on if my parents do what they said they would or not... but I'm wondering if anyone has any advice?

See below. specific PII has been removed. Trying to make sure the message that the National Guard is all sorts of fucked is made clear. Also any spelling or grammar corrections are appreciated.

Quote:Dear Senator ,

I am writing you in response to the recent debacle regarding the California National Guard. As you may have heard, the pentagon is making thousands of California National Guard soldiers pay back thousands of dollars worth of bonuses that were improperly paid out nearly a decade ago.

While this is an extreme example of managerial incompetence, I can tell you the National Guard leaving soldiers hanging out to dry as a result of its own administrative mistakes is not an isolated incident.

Here is an anecdote from my own experience with the Guard. Please do not interpret this as a request for assistance from your office, my particular situation was resolved:

I joined the (home state) National Guard in April after serving honorably for five years as an intelligence specialist in the active duty Marine Corps. When I enlisted in the National Guard I was informed that my intelligence specialist credentials would not cross over to the Army, so I would have to attend the Army intelligence specialist course. While this was inconvenient, I appreciated the recruiter being upfront about it.

A few months later, I received a call asking if I would want to deploy as part of an augment to the (active duty unit). I informed the soldier on the phone that I wouldn’t be opposed to deploying, but I wasn’t qualified for my job in the Army yet so I didn’t think I could. He said, “Okay, let me take that back to the command and see what they say.”

A couple days later, I received a call saying since I had active duty deployment experience in the intelligence job field that I would have no problem getting a waiver and that it would be taken care of. I was then given a date on which I was to report for pre-deployment training.

I informed my employer that I was deploying, withdrew my job application to the police department, dropped the college classes I had signed up for, and began to physically and emotionally prepare for leaving my wife and son for the deployment.

As ordered, I showed up on my report date and during the final audit of my records, the admin chief informed me that I was not qualified to deploy and explained that I don’t hold any job qualifications in the Army. I informed the admin chief that I had previously told several senior enlisted members of my chain of command that I didn’t hold any job qualifications in the Army, but each of these more or less said not to worry about it and that the issue would be resolved so I could deploy.

The admin chief apologized but said there was nothing that could be done and that I should return to my job. At which point I very pointedly asked, “ I put my life plans and career goals on hold for this ,so what are you going to do about my application to the police department and the college classes I dropped for this deployment the Army asked me to go on? Is the National Guard going to call the police department and get me back on the hiring process, or make UNL let me re-enroll in class halfway through the semester?” The only response the admin personnel could give was “I’m sorry, there was an administrative error, there’s nothing we can do but your employer has to give you your job back.”

It was only when I suggested I might register a congressional complaint that a school suddenly seat opened up and I was given orders to Army Intelligence school so I could become qualified as an intelligence analyst in the Army and catch up with rest of the unit overseas after I graduated.

My particular situation was resolved to my satisfaction, but as I talk to National Guard soldiers in (home state) and from around the country, it seems that situations like the one I described are the rule, not the exception. In fact, scenarios such as the one I described are so commonplace that there is a slang term among troops for them. These scenarios are referred to as “taking the big green weenie” which implies that military personnel are figuratively being raped by the military bureaucracy.

I don’t know exactly know what the solution is, but the heart of the problem is this: A significant minority of the military is either lazy, incompetent or both. (I respect the political reality that you could never utter this phrase yourself, but it’s the truth) The way the active duty military solves this problem is making personnel change units every few years. This limits the damage that the lazy and incompetent can do. However, in the National Guard, full time personnel can stay with the same unit for their entire career. This creates an environment where sloppy administrative work or in extreme cases like we witnessed in California, corruption, can go unnoticed and uncorrected for years, or in the worst scenarios, decades.

I’m asking that you and your colleagues, for the benefit of the rank and file members of the National Guard, work with the Pentagon and National Guard Bureau to enact policy that limits the amount of time full time National Guard personnel can stay in the same unit. I believe this will prevent full time personnel from becoming complacent in their work and will protect National Guard soldiers from some of these administrative errors in the future.

So this was 2006, during my second to last field op in the Corps. It was a regimental fire ex, so we drove to Pendleton. Being a short-timer, I was shunted off to HQ Battery to ride out the rest of my contract. So I was with HQ Comm, which as any artyman knows, the battery comm section works in conjunction with the FDC/FSC sections.

One night, we pull in to pos and set up. I was at the FSC setting up, when suddenly some of my buddies from the FSC section call for a lighter for some reason or another. Being a smoker at the time, I volunteered mine. Not long after, it's bivoac, and I exploited my CPL status to give myself a cake first shift radio watch.

Now, the FSC chief was a cool cat for the most part, MSgt C. Always mellow and cool with other Marines, but he had a REAL way of cracking the whip with his own boys. He could get pissed at them in a minute. It was something of a running joke amongst the section. But overall, he was a real cool cat.

So anyway, I'm starting my radio watch, and I want a smoke. MSgt C walks by and is like "You doing alright there, CPL FSD?" I told him that I was fine, but asked if he'd happened to have seen my lighter.

Oh shit.

Next thing I know, he's waking up his Marines shouting "Hey! Wake up! Give FSD his lighter back! That's what happens when you borrow someone's lighter, you fucking return it!" They all get up and scrambled to get my lighter back to me and apologized.

I felt like a world-class heel. And sure enough, the next morning some of those boys were fucking with me about it. "Did you get your lighter back, FSD?" I just thought he might have happened to have seen it. Lmao. Open mouth, insert foot.

For those of us who enjoy traveling I figure that getting advice from the locals can be extremely helpful. I created this thread after planning a trip to NYC with my wife and son and realizing I really have no idea what to see, do and where to stay. More importantly I don't know what to avoid. So if you have some great advice on what to see or do or have some good gouge on where to stay while in town be a pal and spread the knowledge. Think the Good, Bad, Ugly city edition, but less negative and more focused on travel. I'll start with a few examples:

Washington DC:

Do: Hit up the National Mall. (Pick which museum's you want to see ahead of time.)
Visit Arlington.
Check out Chinatown or the Navy Yard.
See Old Town Alexandria. Catch a Nat's game.
Visit Dacha beer garden.

Stay: Closer you are to the Mall, the pricier hotels get. Just across the river the hotels in Arlington are a bit cheaper.

Detroit:

Do: Explore downtown and Midtown. It's undergone a major transformation the last 5 years and is actually safe.
Go bar hopping in Mid town is the new trendy hot spot where hipsters go.
Eat a coney dog. American or Lafeyette. It doesn't matter. (owned by the same family)
If you prefer BBQ forget Slow's, eat at Redsmoke in Greektown instead with the regulars.
For local brew, drink at Detroit Beer Company.
See a Tiger's game.
Catch a concert at St. Andrew's.

Don't:
Go to Blue (nightclub) It may be where techno was invented, but it's terrible and overpriced now. It will cost you $18 for a watered down drink.
Go to the East side or upper West side.
Take pictures of ruins. That's total tourist shit. Just by one.

Stay: Hotels are limited but most are fairly inexpensive. Ren Center has the views and metro access but is a little pricey.

Baltimore:

Do:
See the inner harbor. Go on the ships
Pub crawl in Fell's Point.
Take your wife shopping in Hampden (kitsch neighborhood in the North)
Eat crab. It's amazing.
Catch an O's game. Camden Yards is an amazing Cathedral to baseball.
Check out Fort McHenry. It's beautiful.
Take the water taxi to get around.
Visit the national Aquarium. (It's pricey but worth it.)

Don't:
Go to the West Side.
Go to Powerplant Live (if you're over 28)
Go to the Red Light district. It's just kind of sad. (Yes, Baltimore has one and it really is on Gay street.)

Stay:
Hotels can actually be very expensive in Baltimore. AirBnB is actually a great option.

Has anyone here ever switched over to be a corpsman? Are there any active duty corpsman on here that can tell me what it's like? The pros and cons of green side vs blue side. What kind of training that you have to go through and if you get certs/quals that transfer over to the civdiv side?

I'm about a year-and-a-half away from my eas and was thinking about the medical field after I got out. My wife is a nurse and it seems like a pretty cool job but still not sure. Plus I don't want to go through nursing school only to find out its not what I thought it was going to be and use up my GI bill.

Some of you folks on here tell me about this please. I have done some research but I know there is more to it than I found. The reason I'm asking is because no. 1 Son is now a Marine and is at Pendelton for ITB right now.
He enlisted on a 6 yr contract for security forces but was selected for this PSP and is going to D.C. after his SF training. I just want to know some stuff is all. Just anything really. As you can imagine I extremely proud of him but also mind blown at the same time. Never expected this. Thanks in advance.

Got out back in January and got bored as fuck so i figuered what the hell, i'll give nasty guard a go. Ended up fighting with MEPS over medical issues for 4 monthes and finally got in. Cant wait to show up not knowing what the fuck is going on, hell i dont even have a set of uniform as of now.

So today I was reading some click bait article on the "31 Best/most hilarious/whatever Punishments Ever!" and I couldn't help but noticing that a lot of them were from folks in the military. Which got me thinking, what are some of the most creative/funny/best/whatever punishments TL has seen? I'll get this ball rolling...

Go to clothing and sales one day after work for a ribbon or a new pair of boots ersumsuchshit. As I'm walking into the strip mall clothing and sales was in, I see a dude standing next to the door in a motorcycle helmet, reflective vest, gloves, ya know, all the shit Army regs say you need to ride a motorcycle holding a piece of cardboard basically saying "I got busted riding a motorcycle without proper PPE which consists of..." Turns out dude bought a crotch rocket, was showboating around with it, without a motorcycle endorsement or the proper PPE, and got busted. I learned all this from his SSG who was basically standing guard on him (and did have a bike, his bike endorsement, etc.) Rather than throwing a ninja-punch at the guy, his punishment was to just look like an assclown in front of clothing and sales for a week after work.

No, not gay porn; the Dick Show Podcast. It's spawned from the miserable ashes of Maddox's Biggest Problem in the Universe. Turns out Maddox is a pile of crap and his cohost Dick Masterson is the greatest. I recommend episode 13 and 14.

For those that do watch it, which cohost do you like the most right now? I'm a fan of Denzel Walkes myself.